Quote

Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Courses
Itch
Course
Lets
Reading
Individuality
Stories
Escape
Live
Walk
Writing
Walks
Way
Least
Claustrophobia
Life
Path
Scratching

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A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
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People move around so much in the world, things get lost.
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For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...
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I read three books a week.
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I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.
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For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.
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...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.
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Kissing a witch is a perilous business. Everybody knows it's ten times as dangerous as letting her touch your hand, or cut your hair, or steal your shoes. What simpler way is there than a kiss to give power a way into your heart?
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I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
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Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.
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The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.
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I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.
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Seriously, I think what all the puzzling over parenthood I had to do to write [a novel] ROOM taught me is that children can thrive in a remarkable range of situations.
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Something we do know is that review coverage does go to male authors more than women authors. That's a fact. I think it's one of those examples of unconscious bias: If you hire a lot of male journalists, they're more likely to pick up the latest Ian McEwan novel than the latest A.S. Byatt novel.
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She leaped into space, high, higher than she'd ever been in her life. She came down with a clean snap, and the crowd scattered like birds from the swing of her feet.
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Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.
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I must say, in the case of Room, both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all.
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When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.
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When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.
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I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.
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